Hi Philip,
I think that you need only to install OF. If you download the files from OpenFOAM website and unpack them correctly. The last thing you need to check and do is:
add the following line in your "~/.bashrc"
" . $Home/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-1.5/etc/bashrc"
then source the edited .bashrc.
Everything should be OK.

I am not sure which version of OF you have downloaded. If you download OF-1.5, it is easy to install. If it is OF-1.5.x, it should be compiled.

You are getting the same errors I was used to. Did you download and unpack the "Binary pack, double precision" in the OpenFOAM directory?
Remember that after the set-up of the files, you have to compile ParaView first and OpenFOAM later, as indicated in the READ ME file. Otherwise the program won't work.

After I unpacked the for files (including the binary pack, double precision), and after I added the line into my '.bashrc' and sourced it, I was still getting an error when I tried to run anything such as blockMesh or icoFoam.
I got an error saying error while loading shared library 'libPstream.so'.

I found 'libPstream.so' in 'OpenFOAM-1.5/lib/linuxGccDPOpt/dummy/' directory, and when I copied it into the 'OpenFOAM-1.5/lib/linuxGccDPOpt/' directory, then blockMesh and icoFoam and the other solvers seemed to work fine. Why is this?

Now paraFoam is the next step, it gets an error saying error while loading shared library lipmpi.so.0.
According to the website, I must recompile it with the correct version of Qt. My version of OpenSUSE has 4.4 installed.
I can't figure out how to download and install Qt4.3 from the link on the site:http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/KDE:/Qt43
I am quite new to linux, and I can't figure out which file I am meant to download and what do I do with it? Any help is really appreciated.

One last thing, when I recompile paraView, must I also then recompile OF?

Now paraFoam is the next step, it gets an error saying error while loading shared library lipmpi.so.0.
According to the website, I must recompile it with the correct version of Qt. My version of OpenSUSE has 4.4 installed.
I can't figure out how to download and install Qt4.3 from the link on the site:http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/KDE:/Qt43
I am quite new to linux, and I can't figure out which file I am meant to download and what do I do with it? Any help is really appreciated.

You don't have to do any new installation. As Alberto Passalacqua told me you have just to do this:

Open the file ~/OpenFOAM/ThirdParty/ParaView3.3-cvs/CMakeLists.txt and comment the lines:

And then shortly after that I get IPread and OPwrite errors:OPwrite.C:30:17:IPread.C:30:17: error: mpi.h: No such file or directory
error: mpi.h: No such file or directory
IPread.C:40: error: ‘MPI_Request’ was not declared in this scope
IPread.C:40: error: template argument 1 is invalid
IPread.C:40: error: invalid type in declaration before ‘;’ token
OPwrite.C:38: error: ‘MPI_Request’ was not declared in this scope
OPwrite.C:38: error: template argument 1 is invalid

I am not sure if the first error matters, but the second error seems to be happening when './Allwmake' is being executed in the 'OpenFOAM-1.5/src/Pstream' directory, where: OPwrite.C:30:17: error: mpi.h: No such file or directory
is the first problem.

the second error seems to be happening when './Allwmake' is being executed in the 'OpenFOAM-1.5/src/Pstream' directory, where:OPwrite.C:30:17: error: mpi.h: No such file or directory
is the first problem.

Check that your selected mpi library has actually been compiled properly in the ../ThirdParty directory.
The directory pointed to by $MPI_ARCH_PATH should contain the usual bin/, include/, lib/ ... subdirectories. Check these for the "mpi.h" file.

Check that your selected mpi library has actually been compiled properly in the ../ThirdParty directory.
The directory pointed to by $MPI_ARCH_PATH should contain the usual bin/, include/, lib/ ... subdirectories. Check these for the "mpi.h" file.

The mpi library doesn't seem to be compiled.
In $MPI_ARCH_PATH, there is an empty 'bin/' directory and an empty 'lib/' directory and also no 'include/' directory.

When I run './Allwmake' in the 'OpenFOAM/ThirdParty' directory, the first error seems to be:
+ cd /home/philipc/OpenFOAM/ThirdParty/lam-7.1.4
+ make distclean
make: *** No rule to make target `distclean'. Stop.
+ rm -rf /home/philipc/OpenFOAM/ThirdParty/lam-7.1.4/platforms/linuxGccDPOpt
+ ./configure --prefix=/home/philipc/OpenFOAM/ThirdParty/lam-7.1.4/platforms/linuxGccDPOpt --enable-shared --disable-static --without-romio --without-mpi2cpp --without-profiling --without-fc
./Allwmake: line 66: ./configure: No such file or directory
+ make

where it can't seem to find './configure'.

why can't it find this file, I tried extracting the two ThirdParty archives again and recompiling but I get the same error.

I can't help you much there since I use openmpi (not only is LAM really annoying with a queuing system, it is no longer being actively developed), but it looks like the LAM source code isn't installed.

The setting WM_MPLIB (set in the etc/{bashrc,cshrc}) controls which mpi library you'll be using. The version information is in the etc/settings.{sh,csh}. In my version, the WM_MPLIB is set to OPENMPI by default, so I don't know why your installation ended up with LAM.

The setting WM_MPLIB (set in the etc/{bashrc,cshrc}) controls which mpi library you'll be using. The version information is in the etc/settings.{sh,csh}. In my version, the WM_MPLIB is set to OPENMPI by default, so I don't know why your installation ended up with LAM.

In my 'etc/bashrc', WM_MPLIB is set to OPENMPI.
It's a bit strange, I am not sure why it's changing to lam.

I tried copying the contents of 'ThirdParty/openmpi-1.2.6/platforms/linuxGccDPOpt' to 'ThirdParty/lam-7.1.4/platforms/linuxGccDPOpt', and then I tried 'Allwmake' in the 'ThirdParty' directory, and it seemed to get past the error but then got another error straight after:
+ cd ParMetis-3.1
+ wmake libso METISLib
/usr/bin/ld: cannot find -llam
collect2: ld returned 1 exit status
make: *** [/home/philipc/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-1.5/lib/linuxGccDPOpt/lam-7.1.4/libmetis-parmetis.so] Error 1

In my 'etc/bashrc', WM_MPLIB is set to OPENMPI.
It's a bit strange, I am not sure why it's changing to lam.

Are you really certain that it really is set to OPENMPI? Either you have changed the etc/bashrc script, or you've simply misread it. The normal version only sets WM_MPLIB conditionally (ie, if it isn't already set before sourcing the file). Either try from a fresh shell, or simply unset WM_MPLIB before sourcing the etc/bashrc.

The bashrc was set to OPENMPI but I didn't know that WM_MPLIB is only conditionally set so I executed: unset WM_MPLIB
then I sourced the bashrc,
I then ran './Allwmake' in the 'ThirdParty' directory and it finished with no errors.